Posted on 01/30/2015 12:59:21 PM PST by Reverend Saltine
After 15 years of painstaking restoration, scientists say they are on the brink of solving what sank the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley - the first sub in history to wreck an enemy warship. Considered the Confederacy's stealth weapon during the Civil War, the hand-cranked Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic in winter 1864 and then disappeared with all eight Confederate sailors inside. Its remains were discovered in 1995 in waters off South Carolina and five later it was raised to a conservation lab. Now with about 70per cent of the hull cleaned of heavy rust, Paul Mardikian, a senior conservator on the Hunley project, says that crucial clues have been unearthed but 'it's too early to talk about it yet.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Snagged on rock and sprang a leak??
Allow me to summarize: We don’t know.
Aliens ...
I thought the only way it could sink a ship was to ram a lance into the side of it. Having done that, the vessel was unable to back up and remove the lance from the sinking ship and it went down with it, or am I thinking of another sub?
I think that’s it... something like a cable from “lance” to sub, so that when it became taut at some distance away, kaboom.
This was in the ocean, in a location where other battles had been going on... there would likely be undersea junk in the locale. They had a lot of stuff but no sonar....
So they finally figured out how the cloaking device worked?
It was a mine, so there was no detachment problem
The spar was to sink a harpoon into the side of the
ship the Hunley was then to release a mine and back
away, the rope then pulling the mine against the
ship,
It will be interesting to see what they find.
Have they found the wreck of the Housitonic yet?
Could probably learn a lot from it.
Your technology is almost correct, it rammed a spar into the target that had percussion cap fired explosive charge on it, then backed away and a lanyard fired the charge.
I have been a supporter of the project, but I’m not current. I’m eager to hear what they’ve got. I always figured that they popped a bunch of seams when the charge went off and made it partway home before the submarine flooded.
They spotted the submarine and attempted to attack it, but to no avail. At least we think to no avail. What if a cannonball had been shot at it?
What was the air source underwater for the men of the Hunley?
True... the shockwave through the water could have been too much for the craft. Lousy testing.
I’d suppose through the conning tower.
Just the air that was in the sub when they shut the hatch, IIRC.
Thanks
thank you
Makes sense they would need one, otherwise they would all suffocate. But the science of the day could be, well, odd.
Well that was sure asking for trouble if so. But the science of the day wasn’t well developed either. Funny they could engineer the mechanics of the sub so well but flub on physiology.
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